Ivanka Trump will become a federal employee as part of unpaid White House role

Ivanka Trump on Wednesday said she will take a formal but unpaid role in President Donald Trump’s White House.

POLITICO reported last week that the president’s daughter had secured her own office on the second floor of the West Wing and begun the process of obtaining a security clearance and government-issued communications devices.

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The arrangement raised ethics concerns — she remains connected to her eponymous fashion and jewelry brand, which counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway endorsed from the White House in a Fox News interview— although Ivanka Trump had said in a statement that she would “voluntarily” abide by ethics restrictions on government employees.

Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tom Carper of Delaware sent a letter to Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub earlier Wednesday requesting information on the first daughter’s compliance with federal ethics rules.

“I have heard the concerns some may have with my advising the president in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees,” Ivanka Trump said in a statement to The New York Times, which first reported that she would take a formal role in the White House.

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“Throughout this process I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House Counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role,” added Ivanka Trump, who will serve as a special assistant to the president.

Ivanka Trump, however, will join not only her father in the White House but also her husband, Jared Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the president.

The arrangement the White House initially announced appeared to defy Justice Department legal opinions that said advisers either had to have an official position or be informal and outside the White House operation.

But by accepting a formal title and government position, Ivanka Trump is going down a route the Justice Department blessed in an opinion issued in January that said there was no obstacle to the president appointing his relatives to posts in the White House.

“We are pleased that Ivanka Trump has chosen to take this step in her unprecedented role as First Daughter and in support of the President,” a spokeswoman for the president told The Times. “Ivanka’s service as an unpaid employee furthers our commitment to ethics, transparency, and compliance and affords her increased opportunities to lead initiatives driving real policy benefits for the American public that would not have been available to her previously.”